It is more surprising that anyone is saved than that anyone is damned. We know this. Men argue against it through lying teeth. We all know that there is a God, we all know that God is good, we all know that men who disobey God deserve hell. Pagan theologians don’t describe it exactly the same, it isn’t acknowledged with honesty by every pagan non-theologian. But it is true.

The last part of the list of cultural evil is that men know that those who practice such things deserve to die (Romans 1:32). That’s true even for those without clear connection to God’s law, they at least have a conscience that excuses or accuses (Romans 2:15-16). We know that there is good and bad, and we know that bad can only be paid for by blood.

Men have been making sacrifices for generations not because it’s fun but because it seems like the only thing that might please a god. The hecatomb is a hundred head (of oxen) sacrifice frequently found in the early epics. Even a modern man who fancies himself a comic tweeted, “We should just pin all the debt in the world to one guy and then kill him.”

The first blood sacrifice was in the garden as God killed an animal to make coverings for Adam and Eve. The Law gave more particular instructions, but men have been killing things to appease angry gods without any reference to Moses.

The ache in men’s hearts, acknowledged or not, comes from knowing what they deserve from God. “The wages of sin is death,” and “all have sinned.” All sinners are death-deservers, all men are sinners, therefore all men are death-deservers (a valid logical syllogism, AAA-1). There must be blood.

There was the idea of blood before the existence of flesh and blood. Peter wrote that we are ransomed not by silver or gold, but by the “precious blood of Christ” who was “foreknown before the foundation of the world” (1 Peter 1:18-19). This is quite a statement. God in eternity before Genesis 1:1 anticipated, and believers in eternity forever will celebrate, the blood of the Lamb. Those whom He elects have their names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Revelation 13:18). Blood shed belongs with God’s purpose to show His righteousness, not just in judgment but in justification. Blood shed belongs with God’s purpose to show Himself and His glory.

God’s Law and God’s Prophets pointed toward God’s righteousness, but God’s righteousness was embodied in Christ, and enacted in His death and resurrection. This is the gospel, needed by all and available for all the ones believing. By faith in Jesus Christ we are justified; in Jesus Christ we are redeemed.

Verses 25-26 focus in on Christ Jesus. They are the final parts to the paragraph, and they hinge on the first relative pronoun, “whom,” on which the rest of the paragraph depends. It’s Jesus’ blood that shows God’s righteousness, in His forbearance and His forgiveness, as well as in the Son’s penalty bearing.

”The righteousness of God has been manifested” (verse 21), “the righteousness of God (is being manifested” (verse 22), and now “to show God’s righteousness” two more times (verse 25 and verse 26), four times in the paragraph, a “demonstration” (NASB). It’s out in the open.

Explaining Forbearance (verse 25)

The major-league theology word is propitiation, and though we can define it, both verses 25 and 26 explain why it was necessary.

Propitiation refers to making God, or a god, happy again. It was used in the Greek and Roman culture to describe whatever was necessary to regain the goodwill of a deity (BAGD). It was an attempt to fix divine displeasure, to avert divine wrath. In English we also refer to it as expiation, or atonement. It’s making amends, paying reparation for doing wrong.

God is the one offended. And God is the one making offering in order to remove His own wrath.

In verse 25 the propitiation is blood, which, by metonymy, is an attribute that represents death. To avert divine wrath, Jesus died for all who would ever believe, the “righteous for the unrighteous,” that we might recognize and receive God’s righteousness. The basis of propitiation is Jesus’ blood.

This needed to be shown because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. God had “let go” or overlooked (see also Acts 17:30) sins, not in final terms but in public terms. It seems like men had gotten away with a lot of sin. We see that a sinner dies, but this also means that a sinner’s death is punishment, not propitiation. The sinner’s bodily death pleases God only so far as God is pleased with justice, but it does not please God for sake of making peace with God.

For years and decades and centuries God had been passing over sins in the sense that the full weight of judgment was not poured out. Even the sacrifices that the Jews made to the Lord, following the Lord’s instructions, were only accepted by Him as a type or token of Christ’s blood.

[Christ] entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Hebrews 9:12–14 ESV)

As emphasized in the first few verses of the paragraph, the only way that this propitiation counts on our behalf is when we believe, through faith. The way we appropriate Jesus’ propitiation is by believing.

Explaining Forgiveness (verse 26)

This is the more surprising demonstration. Again we see the phrase to show His righteousness, and the concern is to do it at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Just is the adjective form of the noun righteousness, and justifier is the verb form belonging to the same word-group.

It would be unjust for God to forgive without settling the account. For Him to justify the ungodly, to treat sinners as righteous without dealing with their unrighteousness would make Him unrighteous. Forgiveness isn’t fair without the cross. Someone has to pay. Though it looked like (to some) God was letting men get away with sin because the sentence wasn’t executed speedily, no one is getting away, no not one.

The nature of God is such that He is holy, He is just, He is attentive, He is sacrificial. To show His righteousness and His love He lifted up Jesus on he cross (think John 8:24-28).

The cross was not cosmic “child abuse.” The Son took up His cross willingly. The Trinity worked as one God in three Persons, that God might be just and justifier.

Salvation does not come by divine empathy, but by divine propitiation. It was not divine endurance, as if time could cause Him to forget. Forgiveness comes at a cost, and the Father and Son and Spirit work as God to satisfy the standards of justice that can’t be separated from His own character.

Conclusion

Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 12:

Q. According to God’s righteous judgment we deserve punishment both now and in eternity: how then can we escape this punishment and return to God’s favor?

A. God requires that his justice be satisfied. Therefore the claims of this justice must be paid in full, either by ourselves or by another.

We cannot make this payment ourselves, the only mediator is “our Lord Jesus Christ who was given to us to completely deliver us and make us right with God” (Q&A 18).

How is propitiation effective for you? You can learn about propitiation, but defining it is only as meaningful as a picture is of another person. How is propitiation more than two-dimensional in your faith?

Do you know yourself to be freed from God’s wrath by grace? Those who believe have peace with God (Romans 5:1, 8:1). Those who believe are to be ruled by peace (Colossians 3:15). The fear of the Lord is not the fear of His wrath, but awe at His wrath and His mercy that has delivered us from it.

And so stop making others pay. When it comes to sins against you, you are not just, neither are you judge or justifier. Forgive as you’ve been forgiven, freely, and at someone else’s cost. God says vengeance is His.

All religious roads lead to the same place: God’s judgment seat. Every man will have to answer for himself according to God’s righteous standard. Only those who believe in God’s Son, the One who fulfilled the standard and offers His righteousness, will know that God’s wrath against them has been satisfied by Christ’s work on the cross.

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Charge

God has shown grace to you by giving His own Son to bear your judgment (Romans 3:24). God promises to show grace to you when He sends His Son again (1 Peter 1:13). And God gives grace to you now, right now, in every upcoming now and when then becomes the new now, because He is the God of all grace (1 Peter 5:10). Stand in His grace (Romans 5:2), live out your holy calling by grace (2 Timothy 1:9).

Benediction:

“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen. (Revelation 22:12–13, 20–21, ESV)